Bidirectional crosslinguistic influence in L1-L2 encoding of manner in speech and gesture: A study of Japanese speakers of english

Amanda Brown, Marianne Gullberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

175 Scopus citations

Abstract

Whereas most research in SLA assumes the relationship between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) to be unidirectional, this study investigates the possibility of a bidirectional relationship. We examine the domain of manner of motion, in which monolingual Japanese and English speakers differ both in speech and gesture. Parallel influences of the L1 on the L2 and the L2 on the L1 were found in production from native Japanese speakers with intermediate knowledge of English. These effects, which were strongest in gesture patterns, demonstrate that (a) bidirectional interaction between languages in the multilingual mind can occur even with intermediate proficiency in the L2 and (b) gesture analyses can offer insights on interactions between languages beyond those observed through analyses of speech alone.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)225-251
Number of pages27
JournalStudies in Second Language Acquisition
Volume30
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2008

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Bidirectional crosslinguistic influence in L1-L2 encoding of manner in speech and gesture: A study of Japanese speakers of english'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this